What You Don't Know
by RelapseAndEscape
Summary: Finn struggles with an disordered thoughts as a young child and develops an eating disorder as he grows older. And it's killing him. Oh, and it kills him. Character death.


Finn's six years old when he learns what the world fat means. He realises it means big, tubby and thick.

People don't like being fat because they don't fit into nice sizes and look nice anymore.

He pokes at his stomach and studies the small bulge he's had. His Mother calls it baby fat because he's still growing. He wants to lose weight too.

He still has an extra serving of macaroni and cheese that night because the macaroni was Mickey Mouse ones. Those were really awesome.

* * *

Finn's seven years old when he realises his Father isn't coming back home this time.

That night, he swears he won't ever sleep or eat again because it's time to be sad and he wants to show his Mother that he cares about his Father – that he's sad that he won't ever come back again.

The next morning, he eats his cereal with milk, and munches on his toast when his Mother cries behind the pancakes that she doesn't eat.

He eats that too.

He doesn't know what to tell her to make her feel better. She bakes a lot when she's sad. It makes her happier than usual.

Finn eats all of what she makes and still goes to bed at eight.

He doesn't think he's sad about his Father and that makes him a horrible person.

* * *

It's three am when he wakes up to cry, and then falls asleep again, feeling numb.

* * *

It's been a month since his Father's dead. He still eats, sleeps, showers and laughs with Puck, but he still feels really numb.

He decides to ask his Mother to phone Puck, but Puck ends up running away from home because his Dad isn't there anymore.

Finn doesn't think he has a right to complain anymore, because he just wants to hold Puck until he feels better. Sometimes, he feels better just because they found Puck and he's still alive, though he's crying and screaming a lot and tells his Mother to shut up and leave him alone.

Finn realises that Puck is like his Father.

It makes sense because Puck's a boy and his Father's a boy, so Puck would be more like his Father.

Finn remembers his own Father – he's a war hero, an amazing man, a really tall good guy that did everything for his country and then he shrinks a little on the inside, because he's not amazing. He's not like his Father.

He's not like Carole either.

He is nobody.

* * *

He really can't sleep. He tries to sleep sometimes but he can't.

* * *

Sometimes, he doesn't eat as much as he used to, but Finn doesn't notice it himself.

* * *

Now, he's eating a lot. The food makes him feel better, like he's swallowed those days where Christopher is sitting across from the table at Christmas and they're just eating and laughing.

Finn wants that again.

He eats, and feels happy. Then he feels guilty and very fat. He feels like nobody would ever love him because he's fat.

* * *

His eighth birthday is the first birthday Finn has without his Father. He doesn't know how to feel about it. They order the same cake, and the candles are nice. Puck eats half the cake and pukes. Sarah looks angry at Puck but gave him a lot of medicine to feel better.

The last time Finn got puke-y sick, he realises he lost weight. That's the first time Finn wanted to get sick off eating cake too because it gives him an excuse not to eat cake anymore. This isn't right.

His Father isn't here.

His Father isn't here so they can't order this cake.

This is all wrong.

Finn throws a temper tantrum and sits in his room, refusing to open presents for the better part of half an hour but he really wants to know whether his Mom got him that DS he wanted, so he leaves his room after a while and she hugs him and tells him it's okay and he's going to feel better.

Finn doesn't think he misses his Father enough. He shouldn't eat or sleep anymore and should look like Christian Bale from that freaky movie because it's his Father. He's supposed to feel sad forever.

It's okay though, because he'll feel guilty forever anyway.

* * *

Finn wonders what he has to live for, and smiles when he sees his Mother walking in just to hug him and he realises he has her to live for and she's his everything.

* * *

Puck teasingly calls Finn fugly. Finn stares at the mirror for a while now, trying to see just how ugly he is.

His Mother calls him out for dinner. He wants to eat it. He doesn't want to eat it. They probably think he's ugly because he's fat.

She calls again and he goes downstairs, wanting to tell her that he's not hungry.

Dinner smells good. It smells really good.

Finn eats all of it and feels guilty again.

* * *

His aunt is hospitalised and he doesn't know why, but she's thin. She's really, really thin. He really wants it. He tells her he'll go on a diet like her and end up thin too.

His Mother looks really horrified for some reason Finn doesn't know and she takes Finn out to buy chocolate.

He feels really guilty for eating in front of his really, really thin aunt and he feels self-conscious but he offers her a piece of his Lindt. His Mother tells Finn that she can't eat that.

Finn pouts and wonders why. He won't know why until years later.

All he knows is that she was really, really fat – like balloon-fat, but now, she's like a deflated balloons and he can see her eyes really clearly because her cheeks are sort of sunken in. He thinks he hears Carole screaming at his aunt for some reason and they're really crying a lot.

He hears complains and words like _too thin _and _this isn't right _and _disorder._ Carole usually pulls him out of the room and makes his uncle walk around with him. His uncle's a nice guy and he buys him loads of candy too. Finn swears he'll only eat two or three, but he eats all of it.

His Mother never tells him why his aunt's in a hospital.

* * *

His first memory of being weighed is when he's ten years old. He doesn't know how much he is, but apparently, it's really, really big.

He blushes when he's told he's big. He thinks fat. Big is a nice word for saying fat.

He doesn't finish dinner that night.

* * *

He weighs himself again in the morning and finally looks at the number. He is five-foot-six and one hundred and forty-five pounds.

He tells Puck and Puck just shoves him back into a couch and calls him a skinny freak.

He smiles. He's never been called skinny before.

* * *

He is five-foot-six and a hundred and fifty-nine pounds.

* * *

He is five-foot-six and a hundred and sixty-nine pounds.

* * *

Puck calls him a fatass and it hurts a lot. He's always been called fat and his scale makes him want to cry right now but he can't stop gaining weight for some reason.

* * *

He is five-foot-seven and a hundred and seventy-six pounds.

* * *

He's five-foot-eight and a hundred and seventy-nine pounds.

* * *

He has been taken to the Doctors by his Mother because she thinks that he's gaining weight too fast, and the twelve year old Finn looks away from the Doctor that makes him sit on a scale and blush. They measure his TSH and say something about his metabolism being really low. He doesn't know what that means but they say it's probably what's making him gain weight.

The only thought that Finn has when he's about to sleep is _I don't want to be fat._

* * *

His Mother gets him pills and says it's for his hypothyroidism. Finn just stares down and realises that his Mother wants to cure his fatness. It's then he realises that it's really, really bad to be fat because the Doctor drawls on about things like diabetes and high cholesterol and stuff like that.

He takes his pills, doesn't gain any more weight, doesn't feel as cold but still thinks he's really fat because he's bigger than Puck is and Puck is taller than him right now.

He stares at himself in the mirror a little longer. His Mother calls him for dinner. It's mashed potatoes. He eats all of it because it's delicious and wonders if thin people eat potatoes too.

* * *

He's about thirteen when he decides to go on a diet.

He has one last tub of Ben and Jerry's that night and the day after, he eats baby carrots for lunch and apples for breakfast.

He feels really, really hungry and kinda sick from not eating so he does eat at dinner. His Mother made really warm lasagne and Finn eats it but he doesn't even taste the food after the first few bites because there's a mixture of guilt and sadness in throwing in his diet on the first day.

She says she made him German chocolate cake and gives him a really big slice. He wants to eat one bite, but the chocolate melts on his tongue and before he even knows it, he's licking chocolate frosting off the plate.

He is disgusted with himself that night as he falls asleep but it doesn't last for long because he falls into a dreamless slumber.

* * *

Finn sees a picture of a really thin, bony, emaciated looking model. He feels sick. She's really just skin and bones. He doesn't ever want to look like that in his life. He doesn't know how people can do that to themselves. All he can see is sharp lines and jutting bones. She looks like she's dying.

The next time he sees his aunt, he sees that her bones are jutting too.

He's scared now and is really shaky.

On the fifth of November, she dies. Finn's so shaky all he does is eat the days before and after the funeral. His Mother is sad because his aunt died because she's really thin. He just wants to puke because he finally understands.

* * *

He's fourteen years old when he meets Quinn. He likes Quinn. She makes him feel like a man. She says he makes her feel like a little girl sometimes. That makes him happy and that's kinda enough right now.

* * *

He's fifteen years old when Quinn lies about having his baby. He's shaky and he doesn't want to eat anymore. He just wants to throw up everything he eats. It's about ten pm when they go out to get cheesecake. Kurt's laughing and Finn feels numb, the kind of numb he feels when he finds himself waking up at three am.

He's so numb when he wakes up late at night that he doesn't even register that he's screaming on the inside. It's all black void and coldness touching his skin.

They eat blueberry, strawberry, chocolate and raspberry cheesecake.

It's the first time Finn's ever purposely made himself sick.

Cheesecake is really easy to purge but it makes him want to die on the inside because it's mixed in with this weird acid thing and he swears that he won't do it ever again.

* * *

When Burt kicks him out that one night because he said that stuff to Kurt, he doesn't know what to do. He wanders around and just walks for two hours and he realises if he stops walking, then he'll probably break down and cry. He complains about how hot everything is.

He goes off to buy this really icy cold frappuccino with really yummy chocolate chips and whipped cream and stuff. This blonde girl that looks like she's literally ninety-something pounds says that she's really cold. Finn's just melting over.

Her Mother says it's probably because fat people have more insulation than her and she's really thin.

Finn stares at the counter and places an order for a really hot mocha.

The blonde girl says that that's probably not true because the guy in front of her – Finn knows it's him – is bigger than her by like a lot and he's hot too.

He picks off his mocha and just stares at it wondering if mochas have calories too.

* * *

He eats two packs of CocoaVia 140-calorie chocolate covered almonds for dinner.

He tosses and turns at night because he feels so hungry and at three am, he wakes up and eats the real dinner he skipped – it's Chinese rice, but he feels bad so he tries to puke.

None of that comes out.

He thinks he prefers starving to death than feeling that really bad ball of rice in his stomach when he's trying to sleep. It's the first time he's really, really aware of food in his stomach and it makes him sick.

* * *

He realises that eating chocolate makes him feel guilty because he's never seen Quinn eat any chocolate that isn't really dark because she says it's better for him. He thinks he's still dazzled by her. Sometimes, he forgets that he's angry about her. Most times, he has nightmares of her bones popping out of her snow white skin and a really expensive-looking diamond crown on her head. She looks like a broken angel that is going to die soon.

He doesn't understand why he dreams about the things he does, but they kind of freak him out. He stays awake at night and spends most of the time debating whether he should go in the kitchen and drink something. Kurt said that drinks have calories too.

He doesn't go out of the room because he doesn't want to drink things, because drinking things made him fat and he doesn't want to be fat anymore.

The world is kind of a hazy blur, but that's okay. He sits on the bed for a bit, gets up and looks up the nutritional information for eggs, and toast. He looks up the nutritional information for stuff pancakes and waffles. That morning, he stares at the fried eggs that were apparently 92 for each one. His Mother makes three in one. The waffles and pancakes look like they're full of syrup.

He eats two slices of toast. Nobody notices.

He does this every day for three months. One day, Kurt doesn't put on a lot of maple syrup on his pancakes and Burt forcibly 'accidentally' spills it over, causing Kurt to glare at his Father. Burt says that Kurt doesn't need to be losing any more weight.

Kurt hasn't lost a pound. Finn's lost six.

* * *

When he goes back to school, the whole world just kinda makes him want to puke and die in a whole, but that's okay most times.

Rachel makes cake for everyone and he gets this bigass piece. Kurt's piece is literally a fourth of it. He swears he can still taste the frosting three hours later.

* * *

He's one ninety-six in the summer. He's two hundred and fifteen when he starts the new season of football. When he sees that number, he gets an urge inside of him. It's a lot like wanting to rip off his skin and blow his brains out until he dies, but that's okay because he hasn't ripped off his skin or blown his brains out.

A number doesn't matter anyway, right? But he feels self-conscious in the mirror.

He sees Quinn – she's lost all the baby weight in the summer. They call her gorgeous.

He has a toothbrush in his bag for emergency purposes.

* * *

Finn has a food scale now. He sort of keeps it hidden behind his football stuff in his closet, and he usually takes dinner up to his room. Most times, he'd weigh it, find the calories, and then he'd play around with it until he likes the calorie number.

He doesn't eat more than a thousand calories per day because he's pretty fat and he really just wants to lose weight again.

The macaroni and cheese his Mother piles up is nine hundred grams. It's seven-four-one calories. Finn dumps most of it with no remorse into the trash can and cover it with piles of torn up papers from a notebook. He eats two hundred grams of macaroni and cheese for dinner and it's two-four-seven calories.

He eats it with a teaspoon and still finishes it in less than ten bites.

* * *

He's two hundred pounds now.

He measures his waist and swears he wants to projectile vomit. He stares at Brittany's figure longingly. He stares at Kurt's figure longingly, but most of the time, his eyes are on Quinn. Sometimes, they're on Rachel too. They are tiny people and Finn wants to be that short, and that thin too.

He doesn't know what else to think about anymore. He fails half of his subjects and barely passes the rest, and he doesn't even care anymore.

* * *

He likes chicken soup. It's one-forty calories and a lot for having little calories. He waits for his Mother to point out that that's the only thing he's been eating for dinner for three weeks now, but nobody does, and nobody cares.

He doesn't feel bad anymore when he throws away his Mother's dinners.

He's lost a few more pounds and nobody notices.

Finn feels like nobody really cares because if Kurt drops a pound, the whole house pretty much just goes through a hellish outbreak most times.

All Finn can blame is the fact that he's fat and Kurt isn't, so he starves and nobody notices. He starves even more because if nobody says anything then he must be doing something good.

He thinks he's going to faint whenever he stands up.

* * *

He stops eating. And then when he eats, he eats everything and he throws it up. Then he doesn't eat again for a few days, and then he eats everything, just to throw it back up again.

* * *

He's lost twelve pounds in a week.

* * *

He's lost eight pounds in another.

* * *

A Cheerio finds him throwing up in one of the bathrooms after he's consumed enough food to starve off a village in the span of lunchtime only to be met with Santana's critical eyes. She sees his bright red toothbrush.

She walks past him to wash her hands and leave.

* * *

When he wakes up at three am from hunger pains, he doesn't really care because it's sure as hell better than feeling numb all of the time.

* * *

Finn's only words to Sam when he outlines his diet plan is _doesn't it get exhausting thinking about what you're gonna eat all the time? _Because he's tired. He's so fucking tired of thinking about what he's going to eat all the time. He just wants to puke everything out, even water half the time.

Sam doesn't have an eating disorder. Finn knows because BDD isn't the same as having an eating disorder and Sam sort of is obsessed with being muscly.

Finn finds that picture of that really bony, emaciated model.

He thinks she can lose a little bit more weight on her arms and that her thighs are really huge.

* * *

Sam's sculpted physique mocks him. He says Finn doesn't need to be sexy to look like Brad. He thinks he's lost enough weight to look okay. He's one-seventy-five, and he feels okay, so he just walks out in the school. He's never had so many eyes on him.

_Fat, fat, fat._

He wants to cry. He's shaking from the adrenaline of everything and he overhears Figgins say that people needed therapy and Finn just feels like he's the fattest thing in the world.

The next few days, all he wears is thick hoodies and he refuses to meet with anyone's eyes without blushing in sheer humiliation.

* * *

There's this shop Finn always passes on his way back from home, because he can walk to his house and it won't take more than twenty-five minutes most days. His feet ache him and he refuses rides from people. He sometimes thinks he will faint from heat exhaustion but he keeps on going.

On a Tuesday morning, he weighs one-seventy-one.

He passes by that store and a girl walks towards him and tells him to cheer up and that he looks much thinner now.

He doesn't know whether to laugh because she's a homeless girl or cry because the only one that's noticed him actually losing weight and it's this girl that doesn't even know his name.

* * *

The first thing Finn thinks about when Kurt makes a soufflé is whether or not it will be easy to purge.

* * *

One-sixty-nine point three.

The soufflé was really easy to purge.

* * *

He layers one striped layer over the hugest jackets he could to make himself look like the fattiest thing on the planet because he doesn't want people to notice that he's losing weight anymore.

He has fantasies of ending up nothing more than skin and bones and it makes him happy.

He makes up goal weighs in his head. He wants to be one-thirty-five. He wants to be one-twenty. He wants to be ninety pounds.

He binges and purges for the rest of the week, gains ten pounds, and then decides to starve himself for another two until he's lost fifteen pounds.

He's a fatass because really, overall, he's lost five pounds in three weeks and that should never be enough.

* * *

His BMI is 20.5.

He still wants to throw himself off a cliff because he swears the more weight he loses; the fatter he looks in the mirror.

* * *

He's eating everything in sight.

He chokes on pancakes from how quickly he shoves them down his throat and swears that chocolate has become a permanent part of his teeth.

He buys boxes of laxatives. He purges everything he eats until he's shaking so bad he swears he's gonna pass out in the porcelain bowl, consumes ten laxatives and diuretics a day and spends two hours in the gym with Sam, who thinks he just wants to bulk up.

It's been a week. He's lost three pounds. He weighs in on one-sixty-one on the gym scale and has a BMI of 20.1.

Sam asks him what he weighs. Finn stumbles and says two hundred and fifteen pounds. Sam just shakes his head and mentions something about low-carb dieting and losing a few extra pounds.

It's the first time he's ever lied about his weight.

* * *

Kurt is a hundred and forty-six pounds and has a BMI of 20.4. All Finn can think about is how unfair it is that Finn had to starve and binge and purge to get down to his weight and the fact that Kurt's still thinner than him.

He thinks about it when Kurt cuts him four pieces of the cake. Finn drinks it with milk. Kurt barely finishes his slice.

Finn finally realises he's damn lucky to be at this weight, as he throws up moist cake in less than three minutes and debates on taking a shower and trying to purge again just to see if he's got it all out.

* * *

When Quinn says that if she doesn't catch him staring at her, then he's staring at Rachel, he just kinda wants to tell them that the only reason he's staring at them at all is because they're thin.

And he's not.

* * *

Santana calls him fat.

He wants to die.

* * *

Santana calls him fat and nobody cares.

He just really wants to die.

* * *

Santana calls him fat and it's true.

He just really, really just wants to die.

* * *

He gains fifteen pounds in the summer and loses ten of them on the first three weeks of senior year. By New Years, he weighs one-fifty-one pounds and is borderline underweight.

He just wonders why he's still so fat in the mirror and swears that the number on the scale is a lie. He never buys new clothes and just keeps on making notches in his belts.

Kurt mentions that if pants get any baggier, he will destroy his closet. Finn doesn't know how to feel about that either.

* * *

When Rachel and Finn have sex, he insists that it's in the dark and makes up some crap about romance.

She mentions that she's hit something. He says that his bed is weird.

He knows what she's hit and he definitely doesn't tell her that she's hit his hipbone.

* * *

Santana calls him fat.

* * *

Santana calls him fat.

* * *

Santana calls him fat.

* * *

Finn lies awake in bed and he swears he's numb. Pain is jagging up his spine and there are those hunger pangs that he feels all the time now. Santana's words repeat in his mind, over and over, again and again. He weighs one-forty-two that morning and doesn't even care anymore. He has a BMI of 17.7 and traces fingers on his hipbones and collarbones.

It makes him happy to know that they're there, but nothing is ever sharp enough to make him happy. His shoulders are like wires and his hands are like ice, but that doesn't matter because Finn feels like a mass sinking in the ground most of the time and that kinda kills him.

* * *

He stays one-forty-two until two months before graduation and then the panic, fury and fear makes him drop eleven pounds in two months. He is one-thirty-one when he accepts his certificate.

He buys sixteen or seventeen rolls of bandages and wraps it around his body until he's completely covered in gauze because it makes him look bigger. He adds on five layers of clothing, each one bulkier than the rest. In the mirror, he looks like he's swallowed a house. He does this all the time now because he's afraid of someone finding out and someone taking this away from him. He doesn't know what else to live for.

Then he has Rachel and he sets her free. He figures he has her to live for too, but she's too amazing for him most times. She's like a beautiful butterfly and he wants her to leave and float. It makes him happy to think of her in the starlight, singing.

Most time he hopes it's for him.

* * *

He is lost.

* * *

He doesn't know where to go.

* * *

Help.

* * *

Rachel's messaging him. He doesn't know what to say.

* * *

He fears telling her that he's been hospitalised for a while.

* * *

He doesn't want to tell her the real reason he's been kicked out of the army – low body weight and an incessant refusal to gain weight. He's spent most of his money on gauze and layer after layer of stripped shirts and huge sweaters that make him look like he's swallowed a baby elephant.

* * *

He sees Rachel. He sees Brody. He hits one-twenty-five.

* * *

He realises that he's one of those people that still have the same chubby face no matter how much he loses. Somehow, this realisation makes him laugh for five minutes straight.

* * *

He asks Rachel about Brody.

He leaves and goes to Ohio to think. He doesn't know what to do with his life. Everything seems vague and tedious. The only thing he really wants to do is just die half the time from anaemia and emaciation, from finally collapsing in this beautiful little way in his head.

He's had dreams of it until it's become the only thing he really dreams about.

In the end, he's all alone. Rachel comes by and yells at him for good reason too. She has a point but he doesn't know what to say so he drowns in self-pity.

The first thing he uses to describe Brody is _three percent body fat._

* * *

He likes giving people dreams, because it's nice to see a little hope in the world. He wants to lean onto Mr Schue and just cry half the time. He doesn't answer most of his Mother's calls until he finally breaks down and goes back into her house.

She says that he must've lost some weight, and decides to feed him accordingly. It's kinda ironic because he's been one-twenty-five for a whole three weeks with no real change.

He eats everything and throws it up. His laxatives and diuretic and gauze expenditure is well over the thousands now. He feels embarrassed most times. He must not actually be good at picking and finding bargains.

* * *

Blaine is depressed. Artie's paying attention to him and Finn wants to help Blaine but he really can't help Blaine unless he helps himself.

He kinda feels bad all the time about everything.

He's too lost and needs a script. He wants someone to tell him what to do all the time. He can't be a leader.

Artie tells him to trust his instincts.

He starves until he's one-twenty-three and binges back up to one-thirty-two.

* * *

He stands there in the girls' bathroom when he hears Marley making herself puke. He tries to find the words for it, then Ryder comes along and he tells her a story and they laugh about a laxative incident.

Finn doesn't mean to mention that he's there, but at some point, he just breaks down and says. "That's _not_ funny."

They turn around in shock, and Finn feels like he's just given himself away. He really doesn't know anymore. He just stares at them for the longest of time.

Marley asks if she looks ridiculous in her clothes.

Finn just looks down and wonders why they notice her but nobody notices him.

* * *

After the show, Finn manages to catch Rachel. Talking to her makes his heart hurt. He doesn't want to eat anymore. He wants to rip off every layer of clothing he's wearing and show her how much it hurts him too, but he doesn't.

They get drunk and he makes out with Ryder. It's the most intense thing he's ever felt in his life. Ryder likes to bite down Finn's lower lip. He opens his mouth and accepts in submission.

* * *

He's one hundred and fifteen pounds.

* * *

He's one hundred and eight pounds.

* * *

He has failed Mr Schue.

* * *

He hasn't eaten in days.

* * *

He hasn't eaten in weeks and he weighs a hundred and five pounds.

* * *

Nobody cares.

He's dead.


End file.
